Jury of your peers...

What exactly does that mean?
Anybody with legal expertise want to chime in?

Mainly came up while I was watching "Freedom Downtime," a movie about the mess that was the Kevin Mitnick trial. He was being tried and sentenced by people who had no clue what he had done, could do, or was even possible to do as a hacker. For crying out loud, he was put in solitary for 8 months because the judge was worried that he could launch Nukes by whistling into a payphone!
How are those people qualified to participate in a computer crime trial?

launch nukes by whistling into a pay phone? This guy is my new role model.

In the legal sense of a "jury of one's peers" it pertains to other legal residents of the locality in which you are being prosecuted. Ergo, if it's a city trial, they are legal citizens of the city, county = legal citizens of the county, etc. etc. It doesn't mean "Peer" in the sense of someone familiar with a particular field, or persons of the same race, or any of the other misconceptions about the terminology that abound.

Edit:

It isn't the job of the juror to understand anything about the case prior to trial. Indeed, if you have inside knowledge of particular aspects of fields that pertain to the case it will often preclude you from jury duty. Impartial juries are juries that don't know a damned thing about what they are trying. It is up to the Prosecution and the Defense to "teach" the jury members as they argue the cases.

I was precluded from serving on a jury in DC which was sitting in judgment of a civil case brought against a hospital because my brother in law is an emergency medicine practitioner and my sister is a civil defense attorney. That was considered enough prior-knowledge to keep me off the jury.

Edited by tallen702 - 14 November 2007 at 9:56am

tallen- Something seems terribly wrong there...

BARREL BREAK wrote: tallen- Something seems terribly wrong there...

Not saying the system isn't damaged, just giving the insight on what the theory is. I doubt the forefathers ever even thought that anything like computers could ever exist.

Anyone seen Lets Go to Prison ? Best qoute " The jury of your peers, is a bunch of people to stupid; to be able to get out of jury duty."

Benjichang wrote: lol, John Grisham

I am convinced that the main character in The Firm was modeled after Rambino.

He knows this theory.

Man Bites Dog wrote: Benjichang wrote: lol, John Grisham I am convinced that the main character in The Firm was modeled after Rambino. He knows this theory.

While Grisham can be annoying at times, he has the "big evil law firm" portrayal spot on.  The Firm is, in many ways, an excellent portrayal of firm life (minus the dead bodies, generally speaking).

In one of his books he had this gem, describing the attitude of associates at big firms:  "They wore their lack of sleep like a badge of honor."

Linus wrote: It's simply "proof beyond a reasonable doubt"... what would the REASONABLE person believe, not what what the computer scientist believe.

Which, of course, is idiotic. I could easily convince a normal person of some pretty ridiculous things.

impulse! wrote: Anyone seen Lets Go to Prison ? Best qoute " The jury of your peers, is a bunch of people to stupid; to be able to get out of jury duty."

Loved that movie.